Pretence
by Battle Maid
Summary: A short fic in which Quistis contemplates her life. My first fic! PleaseR+R!


**Pretence.**

** **

**Author's notes**:Hi all!This is my first fanfic.It's not a very good one; I didn't really have a set idea in my head when I wrote it.If you love Quistis, maybe this isn't for you.Oh, and by the way, Squaresoft owns all the characters.

****************

_Instructor #14, Quistis Trepe_.

My identity.My way of life.Or so I thought.

I always thought I could live out my whole life just being Instructor # 14, SeeD #28470 Quistis Trepe.But now, something inside of me tells me otherwise.Something has awoken inside of me; something I have tried to keep dormant for the longest time; something I wish would not exist.

It started back in the orphanage, after Ellone, our beloved older Sis, left us without saying even a word of goodbye.I was seven.Squall was six.I had never really noticed Squall before that time; he was just another one of us; one of the many children who played, and laughed, and vied for Sis's attention.However, after Sis left, Squall changed.Something inside him seemed to be… broken.I saw the pain in his eyes; the loneliness, and it scared me.Such pain was alien in our innocent children's world.I wanted to shut it out; to pretend that Squall was just the same as always; that our little world had not just changed forever.However, every time I saw Squall standing there, with tears in his eyes, waiting for our Sis to come back, my illusions were shattered.So what did I do?No, I didn't face up to the fact that our lives had changed forever; instead, I came up with a stronger illusion to ease my mind.I started to pretend that I was Sis.

Since then, I had modelled myself after Ellone, in hopes that if I could do that, Squall could go back to being his old self again.I curbed my natural seven-year-old wildness, and instead took up Sis's calm gentleness.I tried never to shout, I tried to always stop the others from fighting; but most of all, I tried to be loved.However, it didn't work.Squall degenerated further, prodding Seifer into picking on him.I didn't give up though; at that time, I found that I couldn't.I had forgotten who I really was.Nothing was left of the old Quistis Trepe.Now, she was just a shadow of Ellone.So, I kept trying to improve myself; thinking, 'what would Sis do at a time like this?' whenever any crisis came up.Slowly, everyone came to accept me as how I had crafted myself, and to some extent, they even looked up to me.

However, when I was adopted, something inside me snapped.Maybe it was because Squall was no longer around me…. Anyway, I'm not sure what it was, but I went crazy.I was eleven at that time, and I suddenly went back to being seven again.I felt so free, but at the same time I knew something was wrong.I hadn't gone back to the way _I _was when I was seven. It was then when I realised that I had truly lost who I was.Here, in this new place, Ellone's Shadow was not needed.I ended up being such a problem that my adopted parents sent me back.I realised then that to be wanted, and to be loved, I always needed to be like Ellone.Nobody wanted Quistis.

When we were sent to Garden, I fell back into my Sis act.Squall was there, worse than I had seen him.An introverted, devil-may-care person.Seifer was there too.I never understood it then, but Seifer's intentions towards Squall were the same as mine.He too wanted the old Squall back, and he was always trying to prod him into showing some sort of emotion instead of just longing for Sis.However, I just saw Seifer bullying Squall, so I tried to stop it, and in doing so, won both Squall's and Seifer's utter annoyance.I realised that I needed to grow up more to win back their respect.I studied hard to become a SeeD, and later, an Instructor, because I thought that if Sis would ever study in Garden, she'd become an Instructor for sure.I worked hard, but during all that time, I kept an eye on Squall, as I had always done.Ellone would have done it, so I did it.

Later on, we were all junctioned to GF's, and of course, that wreaked havoc on our memory, without changing our behavioural patterns.I continued to model myself after Ellone, but forgot who Ellone was, and I continued to watch over Squall, forgetting that I was doing so as a substitute for an older sister.As a result, I developed…feelings for him.I was very afraid; I had never had feeling for anyone else before, and in some forgotten part of my mind, I realised that to love him in _that_ way was inappropriate for the kind of person I wanted to be.But, that didn't stop me.Because I was doing something so out of character, I felt free.

I savoured the giddy feeling I had when I was around him, and was happy beyond words when he became one of my students.Without realising it, I was giving up my cover of being Sis, and my work suffered because of it.However, for once, I didn't care.I didn't heed my trained mind anymore; all I wanted to do was to love him.

At the SeeD inauguration ball, I decided to tell him how I felt.Just before the ball started, a faculty member had told me that my conduct as an Instructor was no longer satisfactory, and that I had been fired.It had shocked me, and had made me upset, but I was too excited about what I had planned to do that night; I was planning to tell Squall that I loved him.

I tried to tell him that night; at the Secret area, surrounded by lovers with beautiful stars overhead; I wanted to tell him that I love him.But, in his way, he told me that he wasn't interested _in the least_.At that moment, my mind felt like it had cleared.A memory, fleeting and incomplete, entered my mind._Everyone loved Ellone.Nobody wants Quistis_.It was at that time that I fell back into my old pattern; this time however, I vowed never to come out.

I worked hard while Squall and the others were away, trying hard to forget him, and how humiliated I felt.I kept up with pretending to be Ellone as best as I could; that's why I'm such a perfect little porcelain doll.My mind had warped my memories of Sis; I felt that nothing less than perfection can do.I believed that I could only find happiness if I could become perfect.Only then would someone love me.So that's why, when I had to join up with Squall and Selphie and Zell in Timber, chasing after Seifer, I promised myself that I would not slip again.I tried my best not to show much emotion, without being cold.I thought of Squall now as I always did, as a brother; especially since I met Rinoa, and knew without a doubt that she was the one for him; that she would be able to do what I wasn't able to, even though I had sacrificed who I was trying to.

Of course, I was jealous of her to begin with, but nobody could dislike Rinoa once they had gotten to know her.She had an honest earnestness about her, and I had to admit, I was glad it was her that Squall ended up loving.

But now what?Everything is over; Ultimecia is dead, the world is at peace, Ellone has been found and Squall has remembered how to smile.I was never wanted, and now, I'm not needed.Inside me, from somewhere very deep, Quistis Trepe calls out to be freed.She has always called out to me, but I had always ignored her, trying to bury her deeper and deeper inside myself so that her calls could not be heard.Her screams torture me now, but I can't let her out.I don't know her; she scares me. But I know that she has to be free.I can no longer pretend anymore.I walk outside, to the balcony, and breathe in the fresh, cold air.Pretence has been my life.I had always pretended to be something that I wasn't.I can't change that now.But Quistis needed to be freed.I couldn't live like this any longer; with her screaming from inside me, but I couldn't set her free to become me.It was too late for that.I climbed onto the ledge, feeling a gust of wind encircle itself around me.I knew what I had to do.I looked up at the stars, and saw them twinkling down at me.For some reason, it felt like they approved of what I was going to do.Smiling, I stepped off the ledge.The feeling of weightlessness was amazing, and out of my mouth ripped a scream of rapture.But it wasn't me who screamed.It was her; Quistis.As I sailed through the air to meet with the hard earth, my last thought was a happy one.

_Finally, we were free._

_ _

******************

**End notes**:As I said up top, I didn't really have a very good idea of what I was doing, and I didn't know I was going to kill her off til near the end.I'm really sorry if I upset anyone, and if I did, please tell me.I'd really appreciate any reviews at all, especially flames.Please, help me out to find what went wrong with this!


End file.
